Motorino XPn Chinese ebike (scooter)

Common problems with scoots like that are weak controllers, buy a 12fet controller from the for sale section on the site will fix that, specialy if you get a built up one from Steveo. The basic one from Lyen will still be more then 5x as good as the one in your scooter probably. The other problem is probably weak batteries that have a very low C rating. They perform well normaly but when under large loads like hills the voltage drops dramaticaly causing you to go alot slower.

Bahh, i just googled the scooter. Fantastic that it uses a CVT, but at 500W and using SLA batteries its going to be a slow hog. To go faster and be able to go up hills buy some Lithium, ping would be a good first step as they are very simple. Turnigy lipo packs are king of the hill if you have time on your hands to learn how to build a pack.
Once you have better batteries if you still need more power buy a 12fet controller and you will be golden. But highly illegal probably :mrgreen:
 
Bluefang said:
Once you have better batteries if you still need more power buy a 12fet controller and you will be golden. But highly illegal probably :mrgreen:

Yeah being illegal is a bit of a concern here where I live. Cops are always checking that you don't go too much faster than you're supposed to and if the pedals are on and stuff like that. Not all of them are like that but some don't seem to like these scooters at all. Motorino is now offering a LiFePO4 48V 26 Ah battery for this scooter including the charger for over $1200. Expensive and would defeat the purpose of why I got this thing in the first place, the major reason being to save money. Thanks for responding and your suggestions are noted, your info might get me to upgrade later on for a better price. If I do, I'll just have to watch my speed :)
 
Wow, that is way too pricy. If your packs the basic one that comes with the scooter its only 20Ah of SLA right? To get the same range you would only need 10-15AH of the ping, not 25AH their trying to sell you which is probably repackaged ping packs lol :mrgreen:

For simplicity these packs are the ones i suggest, specially if your planing to keep it legal :mrgreen:
http://www.pingbattery.com/servlet/the-48V-LiFePO4-Battery-Packs/Categories
 
Yes I have SLAs but I have two of them. One is 20 ah and the other is 14 ah plugged in parallel. So to get the equivalent of the SLAs 34 ah, I guess they thought of going with 26 ah on the LiFePO4. Just to be fair, they're not trying to sell me anything. I asked about their new battery and they gave me the info, nothing more. So I'm thinking that to have the same range, + or - a couple miles, the 48V 20 ah Ping pack would do the trick. And it comes with a free charger, all that for the ridiculous price of $598 :mrgreen: This is looking more like a great solution to get rid of close to 80 pounds of SLAs.

Now just out of curiosity :wink: If I were to become a flux capacitor powered E-scooter outlaw, would a 12 fet controller from Steveo with let's say a 60V 20 ah Ping LiFePO4 pack take me close to 40 mph with the hub motor I presently have on the scooter? Can this motor run on 60V?
 
Wow, i read CCT as been a CVT transmission sorry. I just read their site and as far as i can tell its just a fancy way of saying its a brushless motor controller with a amp limit, like every other controller cept RC ESCs :lol:

Umm, Going to 60V will probably get you only something like 33mph. 48V= 45km/h so 60V = ~55km/h. You would be better off with 2x36V20AH to get 72V total. Or get a 48V pack now and get another 24V pack later when you get a Lyen controller. 72V will get you about 66km/h which is ~40mph :twisted:
 
I'm back with another question. So before I upgrade anything to my scooter, I wanted to know what's in it. I already know that I have a boat load of SLAs in there so I got curious about the controller. Not much I could find online about it from the sticker on the case so I took it out and opened it. Here's some pictures. Is this a controller that needs to be upgraded? Or is it decent enough to keep. Is there something that can be done to it to make it better or is it just junk and not worth the trouble.

Thanks
Ray

 
be warned if you up the voltage you are likely to blow the dc-dc converter and or the lights
You are already at 40 amps so beware you can only push a 500W motor so far, If you need more climb ability consider a higher wattage motor.
 
Thats a very standard controller design, its a 15fet controller using very lackluster parts. Max voltage you could run on that controller would be max hot of the charger 63V, but that would be very close to failing then. If you want abit more acceleration you can add some large blobs of soldier to the shunts. But the main component thats letting your scooter down is still the batteries atm.

The shunts are in the 3rd picture, next to the 3 large blue caps there is 3 thick wires, add a large blob of soldier to each and you should accelerate abit faster, but do that after you get new batteries if you still feel the need to as it wont make much difference with the SLAs. :mrgreen:
 
Mistercrash,

I'm a little late to thread but glad to see another Canuck Moto owner.

My ride is a 2008 XPh which is their biggest frame. As with most I see you dived right into the controller to see any gains. With this brand of scooter I find that to be counterproductive as it is limited as to what it can do. Moto uses the same controller with all their models from what I can see.

I did some testing and investigation with my rig and 2 other Motos I was allowed to look at. My findings were as follows:

The wiring is totally inadequate. I found the harnesss have cold solder joints in them and the main power cables are way to small. The wheels are not inline with each other because the speedo drive offsets the front wheel plus the the speedo is set to read 15-20% high. Motorino does not publish nor have wiring diagrams for any of their models. This comes directly from Steve the owner.

On my scoot I had a 1.3V drop from B+ to controller and a 0.9v drop on B- leg. I had to go to 8ga wire to drop below 0.5V on either leg. Doing so did enhance the feel of the scoot. I could not do a V-drop of the phase wires so a used a thermocouple to measure heat increase of the wires. I found an 12 degree increase in the wire temp under heavy load. I upgraded the phase wires to 10Ga as much as I could and the increase is now <2 degrees.

Another thing I found was that system amp draw was never over 25A. I used a clamp on amp probe in the beginning and now use a CA. Draw figures match between the two gauges. Don't know what the phase current is but I can't see it being a whole lot more and definitely not the 40A listed on the controller.

Since the CA can be calibrated to 1mm tire diameter, the road speed is dead nuts on. When running against other Motos I found the stock speedos read too high. Sort of the the fuel gauges in cars, gives one a false sense.

Since getting my scoot over a year ago I have added a backbone to the frame (big handling difference). I have also added a custom wood grain dash to house the CA. I have totally rewired the scoot using Deutsch and Weatherpack connectors. I removed the body work to allow me to increase the storage capacity via a custom wooden box. All lights have been replaced with LEDs. The heads OE headlights are very underpowered to the point of being dangerous in unlit areas. I replaced them with a pair of Lumentators from Justin at ebikes dot ca.

The tailight is an Arlen Ness Catseye. Signals at the rear are 48 LEDs from Custom Dynamics and the fronts are 24 LED units molded into an aluminum housing that resembles a 50 caliper shell (complete with brass tip). I replaced the seat with a Sportster small solo.

I replaced the batteries with 16 TS 40AH LiFePO4 cells, eventually will be 20 cells. Against opinions in the forum I do not use a BMS. I will be making an additional display to use 3 CellLog units to monitor cells and act as my LVC. With the battery capacity I have and the fact that my max current draw is only about 1/2 the AH of the cells, I am not stressing the cells to any degree. For now I use a breakout box to measure the individual cells for imbalance (max has been 23mV) and I bulk charge. Calculated range on low setting is 160 km. I have done 64 km using 21Ah of the cells. this was using the max speed setting of the controller.

It has been parked for the last 2+ weeks as the motor failed on Bathtub week end. A hall effect switch failed and apparently the original owner thought the scooter could travel under water from the rust and high tide mark inside. I sourced the halls and will be replacing this weekend to just get me by. I am awaiting a new 1.5KW motor from Kelly Controls along with one of their 100A waterproof controllers. since their motor only accepts a disc brake rear, I have to upgrade to that option as well.

I completed my first stage mods in April and have put 2100 k's on it till the motor died. I use a Kill-A-Watt plug in meter on my charger to monitor my power costs and average 0.004$ per Km. That's right less than 1/2 a cent a km.

On a side note, you will find that many components that make up the Moto are also used ob the Extrem scooters in the US. Pricing as way better. I ordered a nose fairing for my scoot from Moto, $160. From Extreme the price is less than $60.
 
Thank you so much for your post, tons of good info here. Pardon my ignorance but I have a few questions as I am no expert in anything electric or electronic. I'll quote you on a few things and explain how my XPn 2011 is a bit different than your XPh 2008.

My ride is a 2008 XPh which is their biggest frame.
Do you know if your Moto is built on an existing frame, I had confirmation that my XPn is built on a Yamaha Vino 125 cc frame. The handling is pretty darn good, it feels solid on the road. So that's good.

The wiring is totally inadequate. I found the harnesss have cold solder joints in them You mean all the wires going into the controller meaning the bad solder joints are on the controller's circuit board? If yes, I can redo them as I am very good at soldering.

the main power cables are way to small. So these would be the wires going from the battery to the controller. I can replace those. Do you have a breaker inside the seat compartment? I have one which cuts the power. Could I just get rid of that breaker?

The wheels are not inline with each other because the speedo drive offsets the front wheel My wheels are inline, the front wheel is dead center between the front forks and it's inline with the rear wheel. So that's good.


On my scoot I had a 1.3V drop from B+ to controller and a 0.9v drop on B- leg. I had to go to 8ga wire to drop below 0.5V on either leg. Doing so did enhance the feel of the scoot. I could not do a V-drop of the phase wires so a used a thermocouple to measure heat increase of the wires. I found an 12 degree increase in the wire temp under heavy load. I upgraded the phase wires to 10Ga as much as I could and the increase is now <2 degrees. Ok from what you explain, upgrading the main wires from battery to controller to 8 gauge will help but what are the phase wires? Told you I was no expert. :)

I replaced the batteries with 16 TS 40AH LiFePO4 cells, eventually will be 20 cells. I plan on replacing the almost 80 pounds of SLAs with LiFePO4 48v 20Ah. When you say you will eventually go to 20 cells (60v right?) is that for the new controller and the 1.5 Kw motor you're waiting for?

I am awaiting a new 1.5KW motor from Kelly Controls along with one of their 100A waterproof controllers. since their motor only accepts a disc brake rear, I have to upgrade to that option as well. How fast will this thing go? :mrgreen:

One last thing, do you have any documentation of all the work you did on your Moto, like a thread in here with pics or a website? Oh boy oh boy oh boy! I just browsed Kelly Controls and there's some nice stuff in there. I was eyeing their 24/72V,100A,BLDC Controller/With Regen and their Hub Motor 60V 2KW(disc-brake) :p :twisted: That motor looks like it's completely a ''bolt on'' on my XPn. That with a Ping 60v 30Ah LiFePO4 battery. Muahahahaha... And thanks again for your post.
 
mistercrash said:
Thank you so much for your post, tons of good info here. Pardon my ignorance but I have a few questions as I am no expert in anything electric or electronic. I'll quote you on a few things and explain how my XPn 2011 is a bit different than your XPh 2008.

Well for sure it's 3 years newer :mrgreen:


Do you know if your Moto is built on an existing frame, I had confirmation that my XPn is built on a Yamaha Vino 125 cc frame. The handling is pretty darn good, it feels solid on the road. So that's good.

Yes the scooters than use the 10" wheels are motorcycle based frames. The problem I found is that because the frame is basically a "U" shape it has a tendency to flex in the middle. By largest frame, the XPh is a little longer than the other frames. This makes frame flex a little more apparent. My scoot had a speed :?: :?: wobble if I did not hold on with both hands. Tying the steering head to the frame at the seat area stiffened the frame substantially, so much so that the ride is noticeably stiffer especially at the rear. The backbone on a motor cycle is not just there to mount the gas tank :wink:


You mean all the wires going into the controller meaning the bad solder joints are on the controller's circuit board? If yes, I can redo them as I am very good at soldering.

I meant the wiring as a whole, as in the main harness. On mine the harness consists of many branches on a circuit (ie ground). For the most part the wires are stripped of insulation, lightly wrapped around each other and them soldered haphazardly. The solder almost looks like it is just sitting on top of the wires. A disaster just waiting to happen IMO. Since a bad solder joint wastes power, anything done to rectify it is a plus. I never really dived into my controller after what I found, as I figured the QC was probably the same there as in the wiring.


So these would be the wires going from the battery to the controller. I can replace those. Do you have a breaker inside the seat compartment? I have one which cuts the power. Could I just get rid of that breaker?

Yes, any power wires from the controller to the battery. I also increased the size of the wires that connect the indivudual batteries by just doubling up the wires already there. The breaker must be there unless you like temping fate. 48V makes a big bang if the something goes awry. Having the breaker there also allows you to disconnect the power if the scoot sits for long periods, as the controller does have a small amount of leakage. I changed out my breaker for a night switch and an ANL Bussman fuse because the breaker was getting warm (not hot) under heavy loads.


My wheels are inline, the front wheel is dead center between the front forks and it's inline with the rear wheel. So that's good.

Do the string test, just to make sure as the frame can be off as well as the rear wheel being skewed slightly.


Ok from what you explain, upgrading the main wires from battery to controller to 8 gauge will help but what are the phase wires? Told you I was no expert. :)

The phase wires are the three (3) heavier wires going to the motor, usually yellow, blue, green. They come in at around a 14ga or a bit more size.

Also a trick to getting a better deal on 8 gauge wire. By a set of 4 cylinder booster cables. They are are cheaper that purchasing the same length of 8 ga wire from a spool. On top of that they are of a finer stranding which makes them much more flexible.


I plan on replacing the almost 80 pounds of SLAs with LiFePO4 48v 20Ah. When you say you will eventually go to 20 cells (60v right?) is that for the new controller and the 1.5 Kw motor you're waiting for?

Yes the "V" upgrade will be done after the controller is upgraded. My 16 Thundersky's weigh 55 lbs. There are those that will take the old controller and mod it to bring it up to snuff, but I'm getting to old for that. My eyesight doesn't handle close quarter work such as soldering anymore, so the less I have to do the better.

A plus for the Kelly controller is that it monitors phase current. this IMO puts it in a higher level than the modded ones as they don't seem to offer this ability. That and the Kelly isn't really all that much more that the mod-able ones plus it offers diagnostics, data output and simple upgradeability at the stroke of a keyboard. The only thing I will miss will be the 3-speed range switch but I can confure the CA to allow me to configure a valet switch, so to speak.

To see some issues with modded boards, all you gotta do is do a search of Arlo1's posts to see what happens when the motor over taxes the controller on the switched side. We both live in the same town but at opposite ends of it and he's about half my age. Picture the tortise and the hair. :mrgreen:


How fast will this thing go?
I am not looking for speed as such, as I am perfectly happy with the 35K top. Well that's if I use the "legal" switch, as you already have found. I believe this plug is there to enable them to sell the scooters on areas that allow 800W motors. The CA displays the wattage increase when the circuit is enabled.

From my talking with owners of scooters, for the most part speed in not the issue. It's the hill climbing ability, or rather the lack of it, that turns them off. That is the reason for the motor change. IIRC it will be 88 Nm against 66 of the Moto motor. Where I live it is a minimum of 1 mile uphill first go to get anywhere that is level. I just hate those gas pot, stinky, smokey scooters and want to stay with them on the hills if possible. If things go along nicely I could end up in the illegal 55kph range.


One last thing, do you have any documentation of all the work you did on your Moto, like a thread in here with pics or a website? Oh boy oh boy oh boy! I just browsed Kelly Controls and there's some nice stuff in there. I was eyeing their 24/72V,100A,BLDC Controller/With Regen and their Hub Motor 60V 2KW(disc-brake) :p :twisted: That motor looks like it's completely a ''bolt on'' on my XPn. That with a Ping 60v 30Ah LiFePO4 battery. Muahahahaha... And thanks again for your post.

I was planning on maybe doing something like that after seeing Captain Slugs project. However mine is still not done. I have over 500 pics of the first phase and it's a good chance the number will grow. That and condensing the story down will be a challenge.

One thing to remember, and Ypedal mentions this in his sticky on batteries. Put in more than you need when it comes to capacity. From my reading and such I have come up with the theory of having more battery capacity than you have motor as it relates to KW. My 16 cell 40Ah pack is rated at 2.05Kw/hr (20 cells - 2.56 Kw/hr). The motor is 1.5 Kw. In your example above quick math gives 1.8 Kw battery and 2.0 Kw motor. This strains the batteries a little more and will reduce their life overall. It also affects your range.
 
Thank you so much for your time, you gave me a lot to think about. I too am not really looking for a lot of speed, torque is what I need as there are hills to climb in just about every street where I live.
 
bcwrench said:
To see some issues with modded boards, all you gotta do is do a search of Arlo1's posts to see what happens when the motor over taxes the controller on the switched side. We both live in the same town but at opposite ends of it and he's about half my age. Picture the tortise and the hair. :mrgreen:
Hey WTF? lol. My modded boards were not the cause of the failure it was the 9mOhm resistance with the 8.5uH worth of inductance in the motor IN fact the only time I have ever blew a controller was on collossus. My bmx has been 100% reliable but the x5 has 180mOhms resistance and 260uH inductance so its not hard to spike power into! I have a chart in my inductance threat showing it only takes around .000025 seconds to be to many amps for these little 24 fet controllers to handle!

Any ways as for the tortoise and the hair. My bike will only go ~20 km on a charge with my current abused batteries but it will beet most cars on the road from light to light! :mrgreen:
 
bcwrench said:
One thing to remember, and Ypedal mentions this in his sticky on batteries. Put in more than you need when it comes to capacity. From my reading and such I have come up with the theory of having more battery capacity than you have motor as it relates to KW. My 16 cell 40Ah pack is rated at 2.05Kw/hr (20 cells - 2.56 Kw/hr). The motor is 1.5 Kw. In your example above quick math gives 1.8 Kw battery and 2.0 Kw motor. This strains the batteries a little more and will reduce their life overall. It also affects your range.

Let's see if I'm starting to understand this. How about this combo here.
This controller
http://kellycontroller.com/kbl7210124-72v100abldc-controllerwith-regen-p-56.html
With this motor
http://kellycontroller.com/hub-motor-60v-2kwdisc-brake-p-153.html
Two of these batteries in parallel
http://www.pingbattery.com/servlet/the-16/36V-30AH-V2.5-LiFePO4/Detail
Two of these batteries in parallel
http://www.pingbattery.com/servlet/the-15/24V-30AH-V2.5-LiFePO4/Detail

Then plug the two pairs in series to get 60V 60Ah. Would that be sufficient? Man! That's a $2500 batteries not including shipping and customs. :shock: Like they say, speed costs money, how fast can you afford to go? Well in this case it's not much about speed but more about torque.

Or a less expensive option staying at 48V

Controller
http://kellycontroller.com/kbl4810124v-48v100abldc-controllerwith-regen-p-54.html
Motor
http://kellycontroller.com/hub-motor-48v15kwdisc-brake-p-162.html
Two of these batteries in parallel
http://www.pingbattery.com/servlet/the-17/48V-30AH-V2.5-LiFePO4/Detail
 
"I took out the limiter plug so it goes up to 45 km/h on flat ground."

I just bought the XPN. Could you please tell me how you did this. I would really appreciate it.

Thanks.
 
If your XPn is put together like mine then you should find it underneath the right rear side panel. There's only three screws holding the panel. This is the plug, it's just a wire that loops around.

limiter_plug.jpg
 
Umm, have u burned the motor out or something, why are you looking at getting a new one? The one you have already will probably not be much different from the kelly one your planing on buying. You dont need 60V 60AH(3.6kw/h) worth of batteries unless you want to ability to travel 80-90 miles at 30mph. I highly recomend you just stick to the basics and get a lyen 12fet controller and 2x Ping 36V20AH batteries. That will be a range of about 40 miles. Every Kw/h you have will get you 1hr travel time at ~30mph.

I am with arlo, the modded boards you can buy through this forum are second to none, for package size, reliability and cost they beat Kelly controllers hands down. The only reason they blow is cause most of the people who post about using them are the hardcore modders who test the limits of everything :)
 
I will warn of this. Kelly has phase current monitering. The china bords don't but.... Kelly uses voltage drop across the low side fet so not the best. And Kelly fet vs cap lay outs suck as well. I have lern that some motors need a crazy good controller and most motors with 100uH or more will be able to be run with any controller.
I was able to get almost 8000watts through a 12 fet the other night I wont run it like that all the time I am just impressed 2 fets in parallel can be so good on a cheep controller!
 
Bluefang,
The motor that's on the scooter works fine and so does everything else on it. I'm very happy with the reliability of this scooter, getting close to 1150 miles on it with no problems. But I want a bit more speed and a lot more torque. Right now, I do 26 mph top speed on flat ground. I would like 34 or 35 mph top speed. Going up a steep hill, the speed drops down to 15 mph. I want more torque so that the speed doesn't drop as much going uphill. If I'm moving along at 30/31 mph and I come to a steep hill, I would like to have enough torque to keep that speed all the way up that hill. That's the reasons why I'm looking at upgrading everything :) Now my choices I posted reflect my lack of knowledge on what is really needed to achieve what I want, and that's why I joined ES. To ask for the opinions of people who know what they're talking about.

So a Lyen 12 fet controller would be superior? That's excellent.. noted. I'm confused on the choice of batteries though, two Ping 36V? I'm running 48 V right now with the SLAs so what would be the advantage of going to 36V? Or do you mean two 36V in series for a total of 72V? In that case, can the 500 Watts/48V motor I have now run on 72V?

Arlo1,
This shows very well how ignorant I am on anything electric and electronic. Most of what you say doesn't make sense to me :lol: But I really appreciate you guys posting in here because I need all the help I can get from Endless Sphere's ''Super brains'' :D

Thanks
Ray
 
You can run a 12 fet at ~40-50amps and 80-100 volts all day! But I built my own 12 fet controllers. Lyen seems ok from what I herd but he can't build what I need! He is also a awefull person on the forums when it comes to asking questions it all has to be in private email and never lets anyone have the software with out buying a controller ect... :roll: As a rule If you want more speed you want more volts eg. If you have a battery pack voltage of 50v and you want say 25% more speed then up the pack voltage to 62.5v You need more amps to climb hills faster. You will find both of these are going to make your batteries run dead faster so you will want to buy more batteries?
 
Grrr.... Arlo1 you're confusing me now :) So the Lyens are just ok now and from what you say, if I were to get one then I'd be on my own if I ever have problems with it. That's a bit scary to me. What is a better alternative? One of your controllers maybe? 25% more speed sounds good to me so I would need to go to 72V I suspect. More amps to get more torque to go up hills so instead of staying at 20 amps, I should look into 40 amps right? Now I still have this question, can the motor I have now which is rated 500watts/48V run on 72V? Or do I need to upgrade the motor?

Thanks
Ray
 
I have to clarify that I do provide support via email and private message for easy follow up. The reason that I cannot distribute the software to the public is because I have an agreement with the company.
 
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